​Letter 32:
Dear Bessie Harvey

Dear Bessie Harvey,

I still remember your yellow pantsuit with matching turban you wore when we visited your studio in your small cottage in Alcoa, Tennessee. And that was the day we acquired Pastures of Green. Bill Arnett thought that you had seen my striation series from the mid-1980s when he saw Pastures of Green in Jersey City. I remember your dealer, Shari Cavin, telling me that she mailed my card to you. But I didn’t ask you whether you were aware of my Striation Series as I have never thought that the self-taught artist works in a vacuum which is a popular belief. Your signature sculpture without an overtly political theme takes its place with the great. Thank you, Bessie. Your greater body of work proves that sometimes the abstract spiritually created work is more important as art than the illustrative. But I am in a minority of the art world believing in the spiritual. Creating seriously and communing with tough art is as profound as a religious experience that for me cuts across denominations, races and maybe even nations. It is our escape from trivia. I believe serious art to be solely about the big poetic and philosophical issues of life now. I thought that in your best work that you were in touch with God, Bessie. I may not understand the Africanisms of your oeuvre but I understand their objecthood and their power as art and cultural material. Have your ghost contact your northern supporters of the diaspora inspired works you so easily made. “Make it look easy, Make it look gross.” You made your faces beautifully compelling. I walk through your imagery. I breathe in your color. It fills my lungs and my veins, pulsating through my system. I revel in your sculpture. In the mouths. In the eyes. Thank you, Bessie Harvey.

Alison Weld